Just Another Day In Millhaven

By Ricky Atkinson: Around 1984 a friend of mine started a fight in Millhaven's yard and a circle quickly formed to shield the fighters from the guards firing at the combatants.

A guard outside the prison fence fired four shots from his 12 gage to disperse the crowd, no one moved. The tower guard aimed his high powered rife towards the group and some guys yelled back to him it’s just a fist fight, don’t shoot. The fight lasted a few minutes then it was over the two fighters lived to enjoy each others company another day.

Not many of the prisoners in those days would have allowed either of the fighters to be continuously hit once down, the opportunity for a fare fight is why the circle forms in the first place. After that fight the warden passed a no warning shot rule for fights in the yard. In That same year Sandy Fitzpatrick doing a two year sentence for B&E and with only thirty days left on his sentence had a fight in the Millhaven's yard with a know informant. He was shot through the back by the tower guard and died instantly he left a 6 year old daughter. After that guys who need to get problems handled by some form of violence because mediation hasn't worked began to stab each other.

It's far easier to stab someone walk away before anyone notices and get he upper hand in whatever your beef was then chance getting shot by a guard in the yard. However once you stab someone you cant live as peacefully in the same prison as the guy you stab as Charlie my friend did with the guy he fought; therefore once you begin to stab someone its better to finish him of (kill him) rather than worry about him coming back at you later on. There was a time when the inmate committee over saw fist fight to ensure fairness and sometimes even the guards would do the same thing usually asking that the combatants shake hands as a sign of the beef being over and this was in Millhaven, Canada's most dangerous square mile.

Politics, people with less tolerance to being dissed by being beat in a fight, agitators looking for entertainment and sucking in someone to kill rather than fight another inmate, and no one willing or able to mediate or oversee fights due to administrative reprisals for being involved, make it almost impossible to fist fight and highly more probable for stabbing or killing to take place instead.

How things have changed and not for the better, prison violence will always be and can never be stopped, the degree to that violence can be controlled by a prison administration and prison population who understands that men will be men and fights will happen, how they will end is another thing.

Another case to look at ... two guys start fighting in the common room in Millhaven’s “A” unit. A guard slides open the gun slot and fires two blasts from his shot gun into the room. "No fighting on my shift boys he yelled back into the room" - the keeper and six guards came asked if all was ok, the boys explained just a fight its over and everybody went back to playing cards, watching TV or playing chess; just another day in Millhaven, again 1984